Lok Sabha Elections 2024: 5 explosive crisis factors in Gujarat BJP

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah. The state sends 26 members to Lok Sabha and has been a BJP stronghold for close to three decades. On April 6, a group of women from the Kshatriya (Rajput) community threatened to perform ‘johar’ (self-immolation) outside the BJP headquarters in Gandhinagar, Gujarat.

The agitating women demanded that the party withdraw Union Minister Parshottam Rupala's candidature over his “anti-Rajput" remarks. The police detained five women and Mahipal Singh Makrana, President of Shree Rajput Karni Sena, before he could meet them in Ahmedabad, according to a report by news agency PTI. Rupala, the BJP candidate from Rajkot Lok Sabha seat in Gujarat, had triggered a row on March 22 when he was heard saying in a video that “kings bowed to the British" and “even gave their daughters to them in marriage." Rupala, the Union Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying, has since tendered an apology for his remarks, but the Kshatriya community continues to demand the withdrawal of his candidature.

Also Read: Lok Sabha elections 2024: Will Congress field ‘Raja’ Vikramaditya Singh against 'Queen' Kangana Ranaut in Mandi? Kshatriya community leader Raj Shekhawat, the national president of a faction of Rajput outfit Karni Sena, resigned from the BJP after Rupala’s comments. Rupala’s comments have unleashed protests by the influential Rajput community in the Saurashtra region of Gujarat. With 17 percent representation, the Rajput community has always rallied behind the BJP in the past elections.